Europe-Central Asia connection to pass through Baku
By Sara Israfilbayova
Switzerland’s railway company Hupac has launched a new service connecting Europe and Central Asia, as well as Turkey and Iran.
The company reported that the partners of the carrier are Intermodal Express and the Azerbaijani operator ADY Container.
Intermodal Express in cooperation with Azerbaijan’s ADY Container and Hupac Intermodal connects networks between Europe and Iran, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan as of February 12, 2018, said the message.
Connections will be via the new intermodal hub in Baku: “All main European industrial clusters of Germany, Benelux, Italy, Poland and Spain will be connected to destinations in Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan,” said the company.
A number of large-scale infrastructure projects have recently been carried out in Azerbaijan's transport sector in a bid to turn the country into the regional transportation hub. This included the construction of the Baku International Sea Trade Port, state-of-the-art airports and roads of international importance, renewal of the railway lines in the direction of the East-West and North-South transport corridors.
These projects have made a crucial contribution to the expansion of the country's foreign economic relations and its attractiveness for the transporters.
The International North–South Transport Corridor is a 7,200-km-long multi-mode network of ship, rail, and roadroute for moving freight between India, Russia, Iran, Europe and Central Asia. The corridor is planned to transport 6 million tons of cargo per year at the initial stage and more than 10 million tons of cargo in the future.
The agreement on creation of the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR) was signed in April 2016 in Baku by the railway authorities of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Kazakhstan.
About 300,000-400,000 containers are expected to be transported via the Trans-Caspian international transport route by 2020. Growing interest in the transport infrastructures passing through Azerbaijan's territory is expected to make the country a major transport hub in the region.
The International East West Transport Corridor links the Far East countries - China, Japan, Korea with Europe, but the North-South project will connect the Scandinavian countries to the Persian Gulf, due to which these two projects will not compete.
Moreover, the Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, which is of great importance for Azerbaijan, has been launched in late October 2017.
The BTK railway is constructed on the basis of the Azerbaijan-Georgia-Turkey intergovernmental agreement. The main purpose of the project is to improve economic relations between the three countries and gain foreign direct investment by connecting Europe and Asia.
The project implementation began in 2007 and construction began in 2008. The line is intended to transport one million passengers and 6.5 million tons of freight at the first stage. This capacity will then reach 3 million passengers and 17 million tons of cargo.
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